Search
START TYPING AND PRESS ENTER TO SEARCH

How to configure radio mode, channel and power level of an AP

by | Dec 4, 2020 | WiFi Networks

How to Configure Radio Mode, Channel and Power Level of an AP

How to configure radio mode, channel, and power level of an access point


Press play to listen to the article.

The security, performance, and reliability of a wireless network depend on a variety of factors. Learn in this post how to configure radio mode, channel, and power level of an access point, essential functions to consider when setting and deploying networks. We recommend taking particular care of these settings for a successful network deployment.

How to configure radio mode

You can configure the radio in different ways:

  • Configure one by one in radio view.
  • Assign access points to an access point group and then configure the group’s radios in a group’s radio view.
  • Configure all radios in the global configuration view.

 

The settings applied in these views for the same parameter take effect in decreasing radio view order, an AP group’s radio view, and global configuration view. 

Best practices suggest enabling every mode offered by the access point rather than a subset of those modes. All devices, including older devices, can later connect using the fastest radio mode they support. This procedure also helps in reducing interference from neighboring networks and devices.

Setting the antenna type to configure the radio mode

The antenna type setting for an access point must be compatible with the type of antenna used on the access point. The antenna can be integrated on the device and therefore fixed, or it can be external and thus changed if you want to increase the transmission power.

How to configure Channel

A channel is a spectrum of frequencies with a definite bandwidth. WiFi channels are the smaller bands within each WiFi frequency band.

The 2.4 GHz band has 14 channels. The bandwidth for each channel is 20 MHz, and every two channels are spaced 5 MHz apart. Among the 14 channels, four groups of non-overlapping channels exist, and the most commonly used one contains channels 1, 6, and 11.

The 5 GHz band can provide higher rates and is less vulnerable to interference. There are 24 non-overlapping channels assigned to the 5 GHz band. The channels are spaced 20 MHz apart with a bandwidth of 20 MHz. The available channels vary by country, depending on the availability of each country’s regulations.

Each band is divided into multiple, independent communication channels. When channel selection is automatic, your access point selects the best WiFi channel for you. If your AP doesn’t support automatic channel selection, choose whichever channel performs best in your network environment  –this varies depending on the WiFi interference in your network environment. 

This setting controls which channel your WiFi access point will use to communicate.

It would help if you chose a channel that is free from other WiFi access points and other sources of interference to have stabler performances.

Learn more about how to choose the right channel for your network deployments.

Setting the channel width

Channel width defines how much of a band frequency is available to transfer data. Wider channels are faster but more likely to interfere with other devices. We suggest using 20MHz for the 2.4GHz band. This will help avoid performance and reliability issues, especially near other WiFi networks and 2.4GHz devices.

On the other hand, auto or all channel widths for the 5GHz band guarantees the best performance and compatibility with all devices. Wireless interference doesn’t affect much the 5GHz band.

In any case, it’s better to choose between 20 MHz and 40 MHz. Channel width controls how broad the wireless signal is for transferring data. All those concerns have an impact on the highest speed of your WiFi network.

How to configure transmission power

Transmission power indicates the signal strength of a wireless device. A higher transmit power enables Radio to cover a larger area, but it brings more interference to nearby devices.

Setting the maximum transmission power

The transmit power range supported by radio changes by country code, channel, AP model, radio mode, antenna type, and bandwidth mode. If you modify these characteristics for radio after setting the maximum transmit power, the configured maximum transmit power may be over the supported transmit power range. In case this happens, the system will automatically correct the maximum transmit power to a valid value.

If you enable a power lock, the locked power becomes the maximum transmit power. The transmission power setting specifies the signal’s strength that the access point produces during the space-time it is transmitting. Lowering the transmission power allows reducing interferences when more WiFi devices are close.

Setting the maximum number of clients that can connect to an access point

It would be better to evaluate how many access points are needed for the infrastructure you will implement before designing. Indeed, when the maximum number of clients is reached on an access point, this one will stop accepting new clients to prevent overloading.

Learn more about how to evaluate the maximum number of access points when deploying a WiFi network infrastructure.

Radio mode in the Tanaza cloud management platform

The Tanaza cloud management platform allows users to set access points with the correct radio mode. For all networks created in the Tanaza dashboard, there’s a section called “Devices” where it is possible to configure all the access points related to that specific Network. The radio tab in that section will show the supported frequencies’ current configuration. 

All radios are automatically configured in “Auto” mode. In this way, the access points will scan and select the most available channel at that moment for every reboot.

Furthermore, the Tanaza dashboard includes a tool to change the network channel easily. This feature is handy when it comes to overlapping channels. If you set the channel as automatic, the system will consequently find and assign the best channel to your device each time it reboots.

Tanaza allows the setting of different countries to follow local country regulations, including operation within legal frequency channels, output power, and Dynamic Frequency Selection (DFS). The “Country” parameter will configure the access point by enabling only the specific country’s regulation channels.

It will be compliant with them, and there won’t be any risk that it will use channels that end-user devices can’t detect because they are not included in the available ones for that country.

Furthermore, Tanaza enables DHCP (dynamic host configuration protocol). Through this protocol, you can assign IP addresses to devices on your network. Each IP address identifies a device on the network and enables it to communicate with other devices on the network itself and the internet. Your network should have only one DHCP server. If DHCP is enabled on more than one device, address conflicts might prevent some devices from connecting to the internet or using network resources.

Try Tanaza for free

Request a free trial of the Tanaza platform and experience the power of managing WiFi networks from the cloud with Tanaza.

Mockup-tanaza-os

Related articles:

How to optimize WiFi network infrastructure

5GHz vs 2.4GHz – What is the best WiFi frequency?

How to choose the best channel for WiFi networks

Tips to execute an accurate WiFi channel selection

by | Nov 26, 2020 | TanazaOS, WiFi Networks, Wireless Hardware

Explore Tanaza's Features
How to Choose the Best Channel for WiFi Networks

Tips to execute an accurate WiFi channel selection


Press play to listen to the article.

Try now the Tanaza
WiFi Management Platform

Get Started

✔︎ No credit card needed ✔︎​ Easy configuration

✔︎ Auto rollback when you desire

or continue to read more
about a correct WiFi channel selection.

An accurate WiFi channel selection can be tricky. When deploying a wireless network, Network Engineers need to select the right channel to improve WiFi coverage and performance significantly. 

WiFi instability and signal interruptions are very often tied to the choice of the channel applied. Issues like reduced range or sudden drops in transfer speed are the mainstream problems of any high-density WiFi deployment. This, of course, might depend on the wireless environment in which a new network is deployed. 

Therefore, before designing and implementing WiFi networks, it’s essential to ensure that the impact between a network previously deployed and converging WLANs is minimized.  

To prevent all these issues with your networks, when planning for the right channel, we suggest taking into account two key factors: IP and Channel plan.

What is the IP Plan, and how does it work?

An IP plan is a document developed by Network Engineers to show how IP addresses will be distributed among network devices based on network design to support the required services.

The IP plan allows you to:

  • Determine the number of IP addresses required to provide the specified services to customers.
  • Maintain reachability between the different network segments.
  • Facilitate future expansion and modification of the network.

 

The first aspect to check concerns the presence of IP conflicts. IP conflicts occur when two or more networking devices have the same IP address (layer 3) and can communicate within the same WLAN (layer 2). Thus, the sender doesn’t know who should deliver the specific IP packet due to the conflict. It is like if two units claim to be the receiver of the specific package, and there is no way to know who will be chosen.

Therefore, it’s crucial to know the WLAN’s design, how it’s partitioned into collision domains, and how many NAT levels are cascaded. The typical situation in an environment where a DSL router is installed is that such router has a WAN port with a public IP, dynamically provided by the ISP. An IP class is shared among all LAN ports, such as 192.168.1.1/24. It means clients connecting to the LAN ports will receive an IP address between 192.168.1.2 and 192.168.1.254.

In these cases, it is best to leave the added AP configured to work in DHCP mode (with dynamic IP), which means it will receive an IP address in that range, behaving precisely like other clients.

To know the exact IP addresses assigned to WiFi clients, you can check the DHCP Lease Table, available in the DSL router configuration tool.

If your DSL router has a WiFi interface, the same criteria must be applied, as the SSID is usually connected to the LAN ports and shares the same DHCP range. If you need to assign a static IP to the added AP, it’s important to check the DHCP range of the DHCP server built into the DSL router.

This operation is usually accomplished by logging into the web interface or DSL router configuration tool.

The static IP assigned to the new AP connected to one of the router LAN ports must not be included in the DHCP RANGE; otherwise, an IP conflict is likely to occur between the AP and a network client receiving that IP from the DHCP server.

The Channel Plan to reduce interference

A proper design and deployment of a wireless network must include a channel plan, pivotal for high-performance WLANs.

Whether you are using a static channel plan or a dynamic channel assignment, there are a few things to consider during the WiFi channel selection process. One of the most important item is the correct channel width to use.

The IEEE 802.11 standard defines wireless networks’ operation in the frequency ranges of 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz. (Learn more here https://www.tanaza.com/blog/5ghz-vs-2-4ghz/).

WiFi channels are the smaller bands within each WiFi frequency band. The 2.4 GHz band is divided into 14 channels (1-14), according to the standard and depending on the availability of each country’s regulations. Each channel could be up to 40 MHz wide. The two frequencies combined allow for channel width from 20MHz to 160MHz. Although, there are 14 channels available in 2.4GHz, and only 3 of them don’t “overlap” or interfere with each other: 1, 6, and 11. 

However, channels 2-5 interfere with 1 and 6, while 7-10 interfere with 6 and 11.

For instance, when a station (access point, or client device) needs to  transmit something, it must wait for the channel to be free. Therefore, only one device can send data at a time. When overlapping channels (2-5, 7-10 at 2.4 GHz) are in use, any station on those channels will transmit regardless of what is happening on the other channels, causing performance downgrade. This type of interference is described as Adjacent Channel Interference (ACI).

A Co-Channel Interference (CCI), on the contrary, occurs when two or more APs in the same area operate on the same channel. This essentially turns both cells (the coverage areas for an AP) into one large cell. Any device that has something to transmit must wait for the other devices associated with the same AP. But also wait for all the devices related to the other APs on the same channel. 

Indeed, CCI will also reduce performance even if not as severe as ACI. The reason behind this behavior is that multiple devices are attempting to access wireless media on the same channel, forcing stations to wait longer before they can transmit.

Due to the limited amount of available spectrum, it’s safer to use only non-overlapping 20 MHz channels, although the possibility to use 40 MHz was added in 802.11n.

In the 5GHz band, there is much more spectrum available. Each channel occupies its non-overlapping slice at 20MHz. As with the 2.4, 802.11n gave us the ability to use 40 MHz channels. From there, 802.11ac now allows 80 MHz and even 160 MHz wide channels. These wide channels are created by joining 20 MHz channels together, using the center frequency to indicate the channel.

So why not set your APs to the widest channel available?

At the end of the WiFi channel selection, let’s assume we have decided to use 80 MHz channels for our deployment. We just went from 9 non-overlapping channels to 2. This means that half of the APs we have implemented will occupy the same part of the spectrum. Now, for APs on opposite ends of the facility that can’t communicate with each other too loudly, this isn’t a big issue. 

The situation changes for the APs close to each other. These APs and any associated devices become part of the same cell, slowing everything down. All devices must then wait their turn to access the network.

The best way to accomplish this is to have as many channels as possible to distribute. Even though a 20 MHz channel doesn’t achieve the higher data rates shown on 80 MHz, users can still achieve acceptable speeds.

For most enterprise-grade deployments with many APs, choosing narrow channels will give the spatial reuse you need for your WLAN to perform at its best and improve the user experience. However, the best practice is to do a quick survey and check which channels are already in use on-site to choose the right channel for your network. There are many free tools for Windows, Mac, Linux, to do this kind of process.

For example: in a venue with a WiFi DSL router in place, the site survey might provide the following result:

– SSID A / location 1 / channel 1 / power 4/5
– SSID B / location 2/ channel 11 / power 3/5
– SSID C / location 2 / channel 9 / power 5/5

In such a situation, the best channel to use is 6, which does not overlap with neighboring SSIDs. If possible, we suggest to turn off the WiFi of the DSL of the venue where the AP is being added and remove unnecessary interference. If this SSID is active, it should be considered as a source of interference.

For instance, Tanaza allows the band selection with which you can decide whether to transmit the SSID only at one frequency or whether on both frequencies (only 2.4Ghz, 5Ghz, or dual-band).

In the Tanaza platform, radio selection is automatically set to ‘standard channel selection’. However the user can edit it manually, allowing the individual radios to be turned off.

As the interference sources can change over time, it is recommended to use remote channel management tools to change the channel when needed. The Tanaza dashboard includes a tool to easily change the channel automatically.

Try Tanaza

Discover how to execute a correct WiFi channel selection thanks to the Tanaza features.

Get Started

✔︎ No credit card required 

Mockup-tanaza-os

Related articles:

 

Cloud WiFi Management Software for Enterprise

5GHz vs 2.4GHz – What is the best WiFi frequency for business?

https://www.tanaza.com/blog/how-to-optimize-wifi-network-infrastructure/